Michelle Asha Cooper

Michelle Asha Cooper is an advocate for more accessible and affordable college education in the United States, especially for students from groups underrepresented at those institutions. Originally from Charleston, South Carolina, she has been the vice president of public policy at the non-profit Lumina Foundation since October 3, 2022. Before that, she was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher Education Programs and Acting Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education in the U.S. Department of Education. She had previously served as president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), a Washington, D.C.–based independent, non-profit organization.

Early life and education Cooper was born into a family of civil rights activists; her father had attended South Carolina State University and fought in the Vietnam War. Cooper grew up in Charleston, South Carolina and was educated in the public schools there. Cooper was awarded her B.A. in 1995. and Ph.D. in education policy and leadership from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2006. Her PhD thesis, "Dreams Deferred?: The Relationship Between Early and Later Postsecondary Educational Aspirations Among Racial/Ethnic Groups", studied the effect of decisions in high school on students' chances at being admitted and graduating from college, focusing on racial equity.

Career Recognizing that "scholarship and grant support" allowed her to graduate, Prior to the Advisory Committee, she worked at the Council of Independent Colleges and King's College. Her work at the IHEP earned her a reputation for solid research in the educational field and for successfully working with people of diverse political views. As Acting Assistant Secretary, she oversaw efforts to help students and institutions recover financially from the COVID-19 pandemic, which included $76 billion in aid. Cooper also implemented a debt relief program that prioritized students most likely to fall behind on payments for or default on their student loans.

She left the Department of Education on October 3, 2022 and joined the Lumina Foundation as its vice president of public policy and executive director of its Washington, D.C. office. in its special 25th anniversary issue featuring 25 up-and-coming higher education leaders. The publication also celebrated Cooper in its first-ever issue.

Politic365 named Cooper one of its 2011 "Game Changers".

Cooper is also the recipient of the 2010 University of Maryland College of Education's Outstanding Young Alumni Award and the 2002 National Education Association's Excellence in the Academy New Scholar Award.

In 2010, Essence magazine selected Cooper as a "powerful visionary" while celebrating Black women under 40 who are trailblazers.

Higher ed expert in the media Cooper has provided commentary to various media outlets including C-SPAN, and NPR as well as The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Hill, Huffington Post, Inside Higher Ed, USA Today, and Washington Post.

She co-authored Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success, which reverses the college readiness conversation to offer a new paradigm on institutional value-add in boosting student outcomes.